


if you wanna break free

by fallingmistinthedark



Series: Slipping [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF! Pidge, Future Keith/Lance - Freeform, Future Relationships, M/M, Matt POV, Matt has a Crush™, Matt's Story!, probably some inaccuracies and i'm sorry, slippingverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 19:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13255365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallingmistinthedark/pseuds/fallingmistinthedark
Summary: you know where to find meShiro manages to save him from the gladiator rings, but then it all goes downhill from there.





	if you wanna break free

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! Here's Matt's story from the time he separated with Shiro to the time Pidge found him and he became part of the Voltron fam! This is a little something I've been working on while I write part 5! Enjoy! Heads up, this isn't beta'd! Hit me up on my tumblr @move-on-bi if you'd like to!

Matt felt his entire body seize in fear for the hundredth time since Shiro had attacked him, thus keeping him out of the gladiator fights. Matt wasn’t scared of his friend, but rather, extremely worried for Shiro. Shiro had literally sacrificed himself to ensure Matt wasn’t put into the gladiator ring, which, however good-intentioned such an action might have been, had landed Matt a one-way ticket to something Matt could only liken to the labor camps of Germany. Not exactly because they were trying to commit genocide, but more in terms of how cruel this place seemed to be. 

Matt hadn’t heard one good thing about this labor camp since he’d taken to asking around amongst the other prisoners that had been deemed “unable” to fight once he’d caught the name of wherever it was they’d decided to send him. He was scared, yeah, since the last time he saw his father had been weeks ago, and who knows what had happened to Shiro when he’d been put into the ring. And he was going to a labor camp the size of which would make Stalin himself grovel on his knees. 

And then he freezes, as the thought crashes into him, and makes him shiver involuntarily even with how cold he is. _The Garrison had told them they’d be presumed dead if they weren’t able to contact Earth in twenty-four hours, and it’s been a week at the least. Everybody on Earth thinks we’re dead… Mom and Katie think me and Dad are dead._ He curls closer into himself and lets his first tears fall as he pictures them in his mind, huddled together in the dark of the living room, or maybe the TV’s playing the latest news, crying as they try to come to terms with it. 

~

He arrives at the labor camp in about a day, if the way his body is responding to his lack of sleep is correct. He couldn’t have slept last “night”, not with the image of Katie’s eyes filled with tears as she growls into the night sky, no doubt blaming him for everything, not with the image of his dad’s possible demise, or that of Shiro’s. 

He’s roughly pushed forward by two of the burlier, scar-ridden guards when he falls behind, slow with the drag of exhaustion hindering his movements. He’s barely able to keep his eyes open long enough to get a good look at anything in the loading bay of the prison, which is a shame, but it’s not like he’s going to be starting an escape plot anytime soon. He’s smart enough to not even think he could try to escape when there are guards armed to the teeth and sentries programmed to kill on sight roaming the hallways. At least, not yet. If he gathers enough information to calculate a 90% chance of survival, he’ll start to think about thinking about it. The guard hands him his new uniform, which (yay!) is slightly warmer than the one he’d been forced into for the Arena. 

That night he passes out, but only because of the exhaustion.

>

 _Screw fucking-that! I’ll take 75% chance of survival over this mcfucking shit!_ Matt thinks as he endures the start of… what week is it now? It doesn’t matter, he decides, because, at this point, it feels like it’s been years. Also, he’s been beaten by a guard twice for no fucking reason. 

At least the prisoners who share his room (?) are amiable. They share stories from their cultures, but he notices that there’s one they seem to have in common; sometimes it has different names, but most of them give it the name of Voltron, the Legendary Defender of the Universe, who mysteriously disappeared when Altea was destroyed. He finds himself caught up in their admiration of Voltron’s feats, and even their hopes for its return. 

>

He’s at about 45% chance of survival on his escape plan an indescribable amount of time later when the stories of Voltron turn to hushed, terrified stories of the Champion, the new alien who’d taken the Arena by storm with how enormously strong they were. They said the alien had an arm of the Druids, imbued wit terrible magic, meant for slaughter and conquer. 

He laughed at the thought. Magic. Magic could not exist in such a world of hopelessness. If it did, then why wasn’t there good magic to balance out the bad? And, how could one being be the reigning champion for such a long amount of time in the arena? They were always bringing in newer, stronger aliens. No one survives the arena for long, he could infer from everything he’d been told. 

Speaking of which, he wondered if Shiro was already dead.

>

Shiro was not dead, Matt learned, barely a week later, when he spotted a poster with what he could barely recognize as the Galran word for “Champion” under it, and when he looked up, Shiro looked back at him. But it wasn’t Shiro. Shiro didn’t have a scar across his nose, Shiro didn’t have a tuft of white hair, and Shiro wasn’t missing his arm. Then Matt froze as the thought crossed his mind. 

_What if he did now?_

That night, as he tried to sleep, huddled with the other prisoners for warmth, he tried his best not to imagine Shiro’s arm getting chopped off by a witch in the shadows, cackling as she did so, the pain turning his hair white as he writhed in pain, eyes bulging in terror. 

It’s safe to say he only got sleep that night because the exhaustion got to him. 

>

The work got worse as news of rebel movement reached him and the prisoners in his cell. Survival of an escape plan had risen to 50%, so there wasn’t much progress, even after about a month of carefully observation and little tests. It made sense that they were working him and the rest of the laborers harder, since this was a metal mine. Specifically, the type of metal used to make the battle cruisers and sentries that wandered the halls. He knew they didn’t really wander, since they patrolled programmed routes, but it was poetic when put that way, wasn’t it?

This was also the first time one of them died during the night. They watched Reni’s, that was her name, corpse be taken out of the room and toward what the other prisoners called the Incinerator. It was where all waste went, and since a corpse was a waste of space, it was also sent to the incinerator. Reni’s brother cried that night, and they all did their best to console him. Matt shivered at the thought that Kel’s predicament would soon be Katie’s. 

>

An explosion rattled the camp as they finished their morning round of work, and Matt fell flat on his butt, gazing upward in absolute amazement. After all, it wasn’t everyday, or every labor camp, that was attacked by someone. 

That someone, he found, very shortly after, was the Rebellion. Somebody had found them, and if Matt played his cards right, he bet he’d be able to find Shiro and his father, and get the hell out of dodge before the war effort exploded into a full-out war. 

>

He started as a foot-soldier in Combatant Unit 3-2IM, under Commander Yurnan, an Unilu, who used a staff. When Matt didn’t show any signs of having any skill with blasters, he was pulled from blaster training to have private sessions with the man on staff fighting, and his basic tutoring switched from basic field medicine to basic signal decoding. He was moved up to the rank of Rookie Listener, as they called it, and he began his work at a fairly remote satellite station, under the guidance of two master Listeners. 

This was also where he heard the first mentions of Voltron’s resurgence as the Galra scrambled to find it while also struggling to cover up the disappearance of the Champion. Matt sagged in relief. Shiro had escaped, by some miracle. 

>

All the air whooshed out of Matt when the Alliance contacted them with a single, simply decoded message sent to all stations: Voltron has dispatched Emperor Zarkon.

>

The first images he got of Voltron were grainy satellite pictures as it had guided a group of medical supplies a couple of months after Zarkon had been defeated, and only because it had passed by his listening station’s farthest reaching satellite. By this point, he was a Intermediary Listener, with several privileges under his belt, and more experience than he wanted in defeating intruders, and bounty hunters after Master Listeners. 

This however, was also the first time a bounty hunter had intruded to collect the bounty on him. Matt hadn’t been aware of a bounty on him, but as soon as he’d dispatched of the hunter, he knew what he had to do. Calling on his Division’s leader, he made a decision he knew he’d most likely regret later, in some way or another. 

>

He hadn’t been prepared for Voltron’s first contact with the Alliance; he can tell anyone who asks that. He’d been, of course, prepared for its arrival, and the _normal_ proceedings for an official alliance to be formed, but he hadn’t been prepared to receive a call about fifteen minutes after asking if his full name was Matthew Holt. He had confirmed that it was, and not five hours later, he received his first image of the people who piloted Voltron, and what the Lions looked like when they weren’t in Voltron form. He was so preoccupied with the logic behind five lions combining to create a person-like robot that he almost missed the most important part of the picture. 

A human person with auburn hair was wearing the Green Paladin armor, and she was wearing circle-rimmed glasses. In fact, all of Voltron was human, he’d been informed. And… was that… Shiro?

~

The close up shot of the Green Paladin that arrived only a few minutes later named the Green Paladin Pidge Holt. Matt felt tears run down his face as he watched his sister duck and weave through the demonstration sentries, working in tandem with Shiro and the other paladins in the livestream link that had arrived alongside the Paladin’s close ups. She was in space somehow, and he had the coolest little sister in existence, he thought, watching her kick ass, take names and be a Paladin of Voltron. 

>

After the Master Listeners at his new outpost were informed he was the brother of the Green Paladin, they found him and gave him something he’d wanted since he’d started working his way through the ranks. It was the Alliance equivalent to the God Program, a chip able to access any and all channels for the Alliance, as well as access to every single Alliance head. And then, with another chip holding a ticket to where Voltron had landed, Matt was sent on his way, one step closer to being back home, and safe from this war. 

>

He slunk through the crowds that were so eager to catch a glimpse of the legendary Voltron, and he was too, but not because of the reason many around him were excited. Sure, he was excited for Voltron’s alliance to the Alliance (funny, maybe they should try a new name) but more than anything he wanted to hug Pidge tight in his arms and tell her sorry over and over again, probably not before she punched him in the gut though. She’d always been like that, a right spitfire when she wanted to be and a pain in the ass if you got her mad. 

He missed that, being able to mess with her, and then waking up with blue hair or something like that. It had happened once, after her teachers had started teaching her basic chemistry. She was even smarter than him at that age before he’d left for Kerberos, so he wondered how smart she was now, surrounded by alien tech. He bet she was thriving, her chaotic curiosity never quite satiated in a world of ever-expanding technological knowledge. 

Opening up the Masters chip (at least that’s what he’d taken to calling it in the past day or so that he’d had it), he sent a quick transmission to the main security detail, asking for permission to meet the paladins of Voltron on behalf of the remote Listening stations across the galaxy. The security Head _ping_ ed him back, with his okay as long as he checked in with him, and nobody else. After all, Masters were Masters for a reason. It wasn’t just experience that got you the title. It was your ability to protect yourself and the information you dealt in. Never had a Galra or a Galra-affiliate gotten their hands on a Masters chip. And if they had, they were always cheap knock-offs that couldn’t pass even the most general of inspections.

He pushed his way back into the crowd once that was done; heading to the door the Head had directed him to meet them at. Matt caught a flash of green just as the shadow of the arena before him enveloped him. The Head met him at the agreed door, and seemed to take a double take once he saw him. No doubt the Head had already met all the paladins, and Pidge, with her hair cut the way it was, looked exactly like he had before he’d left, however, Matt hadn’t had much time for a haircut in the past year and a half to two years. “You look astonishingly like the Green Paladin, Master Matt,” the Head commented as he led Matt through the long narrow hallways of the arena’s underbelly. These passages, he knew, also connected to the lodging rooms of the diplomats that arrived in the Alliance. It was where the Paladins were no doubt staying, unless, of course, the Alteans had decided it best for them to return to the Castle every night just in case. 

“I get that a lot,” Matt said, flashing a smirk at the alien, who looked dubiously back at him, but said nothing more on the matter. 

“Right,” the alien said a moment later, before stopping before what looked suspiciously like an elevator to push an arrow that looked suspiciously like “up”. “Up we go, you’ll meet the Paladins and the Alteans once they finish their last promotion performance.”

“About that,” Matt starts, something about this striking him as odd, “why performances where they form Voltron?”

“The last time anyone saw Voltron was 10,000 years ago, Master. You can see why they want to make sure the people know Voltron is back by seeing it in the flesh- er- metal,” the Head explained as the door slid open, and together they stepped in. 

“I see,” Matt said, leaning against the wall of the elevator, peering out at the Alliance’s main pavilion, and, eventually, down into the Arena. The sight of the Green lion flying around had Matt smiling and swelling with pride. He’d thought Pidge to be not much of a pilot, but she could sure as hell fly that thing, he thought, as Pidge pulled out of a nosedive, her lion looking especially fluid compared to the others. But, he knew it was just the pride speaking. 

“Is the Green lion your favorite?” The Head asked him once he noticed them watching out of the corner of his eye. He nodded, too enamored with the Green lion’s sudden disappearance to pay much attention to the Head. The Head smirked, nodding their head. “Yeah, the Green one likes to do that sometimes.”

“Why can’t I see it anymore when all of the others are still visible?” Matt asked, watching intently, and waiting for the Green lion’s reappearance. 

“I overheard them talking about how it was a cloaking function. When the Green one goes like that, it seems it’s invisible to the eye and to most scanners,” the Head told him, and Matt’s heart almost burst with how proud he was of Pidge. Since the others couldn’t do it, he bet that Pidge had added it as a modification. God was he proud of how far she’s come. A distant ding broke him out of his thoughts, and when he looked over to the Head to ask what was going on, only to realize the elevator ride had stopped, and the doors had opened to reveal a moderately lavish hallway.

“Right this way, Master Matt,” the Head instructed as they headed out the door without looking back to confirm if Matt was actually following him (which he was, but it’s nice to know someone’s making sure you don’t get accidentally lost). And then, once the Head lead him to a room with an inlaid couch area, he was left alone with his thoughts. 

And, because he was an idiot who hadn’t slept on the way here, he passed out on the couch, because, of course he would. Which is also how he ended up getting kidnapped. 

>

“So you’re not the Green Paladin?” the bounty hunter asked, suddenly looking incredibly sick to the stomach all of a sudden for a bounty hunter working for the Empire.  
“No. No I am not,” Matt said, sighing in displeasure as he did so. They were going over this little fact for what felt like the hundredth time, but, according to Matt’s record keeping it was only the fifth time, unfortunately. It also seemed that his captor wasn’t too smart, since it was only now sinking in and occurring to the alien that Matt wasn’t just kidding, joking him, or bluffing. He didn’t know how long he’d been out of it, but he did know the sun had set already, but on what day, he didn’t know. 

><  
Meanwhile, back at the hotel…  
><

Pidge lifted her helmet off her shoulders and over her head, watching the sun set over the Arena as the elevator took them higher and higher, back to their hotel room. No one was in much of a talking mood tonight, or any night for that matter, since they’d lost Lance. Gone; like he was a ghost, like he’d never even really been there. Pidge clenched her fists, reminded of her burning hatred for the person who’d caused Lance to leave. She refused to give him as much power as using his name. She called him Fuckface, and Shiro either didn’t have the energy to correct her, or simply silently agreed with what she called him. 

She watched the sun set over the Arena, and suddenly a thought occurred to her, far more poetic than anything she’d ever thought in her life. _Lance is like a setting sun, and this the night._

Allura, dressed in pink paladin armor, is also watching the sun set. Sometimes, Pidge thinks Allura has it the hardest of them all, with how she has to pilot Blue, making sure no one knows they don’t really have a Blue Paladin, not anymore. They almost didn’t form Voltron today, with how all of them are dealing with Lance’s disappearance. That is to say, not well. 

Hunk almost threw up in Yellow today, but the almost is an improvement. Slowly but surely, Pidge can tell, they’re getting better, closer to normal, a new normal, but not necessarily a bad normal, she thinks. But that doesn’t mean she’ll stop looking for Lance. 

The elevator doors slide open behind her, prompting her to turn around to go to their hotel room. The Head of Security himself waits outside their room’s door, looking a little out of place with how much he’s shifting. If she’s observed enough of his species of alien, it means he’s anticipating something. Anticipating what is what she has to be on guard for. 

“Princess, Voltron, welcome back from your show,” he says, standing suddenly to attention. Allura eyes him wearily, and Shiro takes one small step closer to her and Pidge. Pidge acknowledges the motion by tensing, letting them know she’s seen it too. Lance would have told them to relax by now. _He would’ve diffused the situation. But he’s not here, is he?_ A traitorous corner of Pidge’s mind whispers.  
“Do not worry paladins! There is a surprise for you in your room! I am just excited to see how react!” The Head informs them, nodding to the door. “I assure you, on my honor as Head of Security for the Alliance, that it is completely safe.” They remained quiet as Shiro nodded at them, signaling that he was going to go in first. Keith already had a hold on his dagger, and Hunk looked ready to jump in front them. 

Shiro nudged the door open under the Head’s watchful gaze, and all were surprised when nothing happened. What was surprising was how very surprised the Head looked. 

“Why is it quiet? I left him in here…,” the Head whispered to himself. Pidge brought her eyes square to his. 

“Who did you leave in here?” 

“Someone who looked very much like you all. He was very excited to be here, and couldn’t stop watching your performance on our way up here,” Pidge’s breath hitched. _Lance!_ her mind rejoiced. _Lance was here!_ But there was also a problem. He _had_ been here, but he wasn’t anymore. “I was told this person had information on one of your family members, and was here to help you with his master chip to find him.”

“Wait, someone was here to help me find my brother?” Pidge blurted before her mind caught up with her mouth. The Head nodded, wringing his hands. 

“He held a Master’s chip-,“ the Head interrupted himself, bringing one of his hands up to point to an object on the floor, glinting in the last rays of Aleyan’s sun. “That’s it. It should help you find out more about what happened here.”

That’s when she noticed the mess of cushions on the couch. There had been a struggle here, and if she had to bet money on it, she’d say whoever kidnapped Lance went out the window. 

~

She got to work on opening up the chip’s information as soon as she’d booted up her Altean equivalent of an iPad. At first, it asked for a password, and she’d thought it would be easy. It had not been. Nothing worked, and it was almost midnight. Then, a thought hit her. And she uploaded the nastiest virus to it she could find. 

It let her in after that. 

_[Matt Holt]_ the screen read, with several files labeled “Important”, “Voltron”, and “Dad”. Others looked to be standard communication apps, but what puzzled her the most was that this looked like it was _Matt’s_ device, not Lance’s. She’d found her brother, it seemed, instead of her friend. 

And he’d been kidnapped by the space equivalents of orcs. The dumbass. 

><

The sun was setting on the horizon, and the performance had ended. He had to admit, it hurt to see someone else flying where he should be. If he was right, he’d guess it was Allura. 

“Are we ready to go?” A voice asked, off to his right. Yet he did not turn away from the sight of the sun setting behind the glass tower. The voice was nervous, unsure of how to approach him. That was fine; they’d learn what worked for each other as time went on. 

“Almost,” he whispered. He saw the other dip their head once before footsteps walking away joined the sounds cascading around him. Ships flying in and ships flying out of markets, ships getting people where they needed to go. Those people talking excitedly and some talking seriously as they wandered through the markets below his perch. 

The device on his waist buzzed, signaling the time to go. He got up, slowly, savoring each moment he had left here. He’d done what he came here to do. The familiar head of auburn hair had reached the top of the tower unharmed, and he’d stayed longer than he was supposed to already. 

But he didn’t want to go. _Not yet,_ a strange part of him whispered. _I don’t want to go yet. You can’t make me._ But that was a part of him he rarely listened to anymore. He smiled, a bitter quirk of his mouth. He didn’t know why he’d done this; she would’ve found him sooner or later anyways. 

“We really do need to go, you know,” he hadn’t even heard the footsteps this time. 

“I know,” he responded, getting up from his perch. His legs had been dangling off the side, almost like he was just sitting on a dock at the lake his family would visit often. He wondered what it would be like to slip off, and down. Would it be like slipping into the lake, suddenly feeling weightless as the water caught you? “I know,” he repeated, fighting for his grip on the now as the force of the past threatened to consume him. 

No, air never caught you. It didn’t have any weight, practically, and its grip was loose, barely hanging on to anything more than his hair or the loosest of clothes. 

And nobody ever caught you if you vanished into it. 

“Then let’s go, Lance.”

><

Matt was counting the drops of water from the ceiling of his cage/prison/whatever the heck it was when a rumble shook the ground around him. It wasn’t a very fun activity, but the tremble messed him up. 

“GOD DAMN IT,” he yelled, as it settled again. He’d been up to 5,347. A new record of concentration, he’d say. When he looked up, his captor was looking at what looked like a monitor giving him a view to the outside with an increasingly pale face. Matt really hoped whatever was giving his captor a severe case of cut-and-run-itis was on his side. And hopefully it wasn’t cut-and-run-itis but leave-where-they-are-and-run-itis. He didn’t want to have to die because some idiot captured the wrong person. Then again, he was an idiot too for relaxing a bit too much there. 

Another tremble shook the ground around him, making dirt fall in his hair as a sound pierced the lair his captor had shoved him in was forced open at the front door. 

“It’s Voltron!” A worker from the front shouted. “Run! It’s Voltro-,” Matt felt bad for the poor guy. He hadn’t even finished his sentence before he’d been knocked out or killed. Matt didn’t really know and didn’t really care which, as long as he could get out of here in one piece, and preferably back to his sister. So, with the identity of the invaders confirmed, he sat back and waited for his sister to get back to him. 

>

It took a while, but eventually someone garbed in black armor came rushing out of the side door. His actual captor was dead before he’d even realized what was happening. Shiro looked cool in the armor, Matt thought, but he winced upon seeing Shiro’s arm glowing purple. _That was my fault_ , he thought. If it hadn’t been for him, Shiro wouldn’t have been the only human in the ring. 

Shiro hadn’t yet turned around to face him, likely because Matt had pressed himself into the shadows near the back, barely making a sound (a technique he’d learned while a scout for the ground troops on one of the many planets the Alliance was working to liberate. That and it looked like Shiro was exhausted. 

Someone, garbed in bright green armor, hurtled through the side door, making his breath hitch. “Shiro! Did you find Matt?” Pidge asked, breathless as she looked around. 

“I haven’t looked around yet, Pidge. If he’s here, he’s being _really_ quiet,” Shiro told her, beginning to scan the room. Matt huffed, a soft sound that barely sounded a foot in front of him. 

“He has to be here! This is the only bandit hideout for miles!” Pidge insisted and Shiro laughed, a nice, rich sound. Matt wasn’t sure he’d ever hear that laugh again. Shiro looked okay, despite all the signs that he obviously hadn’t been. The scar on the bridge of his nose, his bionic arm, that streak of white in his hair… Matt felt for him, even with the scars of his own he’d gathered. 

“You came in, from the outside?” Matt said, a light whisper, but a distinct one none the less. Maybe memeing wasn’t exactly the correct way to greet your sister and best friend (/maybe crush okay??? He still wasn’t sure about that), but Matt hadn’t really ever been one for logic when he was about to cry. And he was about to cry. 

“Matt!” Pidge said, rushing towards the sound of the voice. Pausing at the mouth of his holding cell, she stiffened. “I should’ve known they’d camouflage it. You should’ve spoken up sooner.” 

“Sorry. M’trying not to cry right now, you see,” Matt responded, the slight telltale waver in his voice that told them he really was going to cry. 

“Matt…,” Pidge trailed as he watched her move around the room, looking for the mechanism to drop the illusion and the electric shocks that came along with trying to cross it. He should know. He had not been very knowledgeable about space bandit technology when he’d first woken up. She stopped in front of a nondescript-looking control panel, and, after a moment of thought, she pressed a few spaces on it, and the camouflage dropped. He almost didn’t believe it. 

Pidge barreled into him as soon as she spotted him, collapsing into his outstretched arms as soon as she was within range. Together, he and Pidge cried, for a long, long time. 

It was the best hug he’d ever gotten. 

><

The Castle was a lot to take in. He hadn’t been let go of by the Rebellion until a few hours ago, and only after Allura had fought their representatives tooth and nail for his custody. 

After living with so many people in a relatively small, cramped, dark space, this was almost like a breath of fresh air. The Castle was spacious, evenly lit all throughout, and had relatively few people living on it. Seven, including him if Pidge had told him the right number. She took him on a tour as soon as he stepped foot into the Castle. 

He saw a lot, did a lot, and heard a lot, but to him, the most important thing was that he was back with his sister, who was mostly safe despite her incredibly dangerous position as a paladin, and with his cru-friend, who was also a paladin. 

That night, as he headed to the room Pidge had pointed out Allura was okay with him taking, Shiro stepped out of the bedroom next to it right as Matt entered his. He looked ragged, like he’d been trying to sleep for a while, but it wasn’t working. Matt smiled at him. 

“Wanna join me? It’ll be just like the old times,” Matt said, and Shiro nodded.  
“If it’s okay,” Shiro responded, stepping closer, but not yet moving into the room. 

“Of course it’s okay with me, Shiro. Now get in here before I come over there and drag you in,” Matt said, smiling at the way Shiro blinked in that slightly surprised but mostly happy look. 

He’d missed that look. 

Once they were both settled, Shiro against the wall and Matt curled up against him, Matt let himself breathe for the first time since arriving here. 

“I’m glad you found me,” Matt whispered, thinking Shiro had fallen asleep from the way his breathing had gone quiet. 

“I’m glad we did too,” Shiro said, surprising him. He squeaked with embarrassment. Shiro chuckled in the dark. 

“I thought you were asleep…,” Matt trailed, turning so that he was facing Shiro, who was suddenly much closer than Matt had thought. Matt kinda wanted to reach up and touch the white tuft of hair. It looked soft. 

“I almost was,” Shiro admitted, smiling a little. “But I like talking with you. I’ve missed this.”

“I missed you too,” Matt responded, smiling back. “I never want to be like that ever again.”

“Like what?” Shiro asked, concerned. Matt shook his head, smile getting smaller as he remembered all the lonely nights where we wasn’t sure what would become of him, or what had happened to Shiro. 

“Alone, not knowing what happened to y-you or D-dad. Unsure of what was happening around me. Unsure if I would ever see y-you or K-katie or Mom or Dad again,” Matt rambled, hopelessly failing at just shutting his mouth. Shiro’s problems, with the new arm and becoming leader of Voltron so soon after escaping Galra clutches, were probably so much worse than Matt’s. He didn’t need to hear this, but all the same, the other gathered Matt up in his arms, holding him impossibly closer. 

“Its okay, Matt. You’re here now, and I promise you we’ll find your dad and get all of you home in one piece. I promise you’ll never feel that way again,” Shiro whispered fiercely. So determined that Matt almost believed him. 

“Thank you, Shiro,” Matt whispered back, tucking his head into the crook between Shiro’s neck and shoulder. He felt safe there. He let his breathing even out to Shiro’s. 

He fell asleep before he could get a response back, but it didn’t really matter. That night, he got some of the best sleep he’d ever had.


End file.
